Very interesting writeup on how Netflix are finding operating a serverless scripting system; they offer scriptability in their backend and it's used heavily by devs to provide features. Lots of having to reinvent the wheel on packaging, deployment, versioning, and test/staging infrastructure

Some tantalising discussion on twitter of an Airflow + AMI + ASG workflow for ML packaging:

'We build models using Airflow. We deploy new models as AMIs where each AMI is model + scoring code. The AMI is hence a version of code + model at a point in time : #immutable_infrastructure. It's natural for Airflow to build & deploy the model+code with each Airflow DAG Run corresponding to a versioned AMI. if there's a problem, we can simply roll back to the previous AMI & identify the problematic model building Dag run. Since we use ASGs, Airflow can execute a rolling deploy of new AMIs. We could also have it do a validation & ASG rollback of the AMI if validation fails. Airflow is being used for reliable Model build+validation+deployment.'

This is like watching a train-wreck in slow motion on Groundhog Day. We, in the broader Linux and open source community, have been down this path multiple times over the past fifteen years, specifically with package formats. While there needs to be room for experimentation, having two incompatible specs driven by two startups trying to differentiate and in direct competition is *not* a good thing. It would be better for the community and for everyone who depends on our collective efforts if CoreOS and Docker collaborated on a standardized common spec, image format, and distribution protocol. To this end, we at Red Hat will continue to contribute to both initiatives with the goal of driving convergence.

OSTree is a tool for managing bootable, immutable, versioned filesystem trees. It is not a package system; nor is it a tool for managing full disk images. Instead, it sits between those levels, offering a blend of the advantages (and disadvantages) of both.

You can use any build system you like to place content into it on a build server, then export an OSTree repository via static HTTP. On each client system, "ostree admin upgrade" can incrementally replicate that content, creating a new root for the next reboot. This provides fully atomic upgrades. Any changes made to /etc are propagated forwards, and all local state in /var is shared.

A key goal of the project is to complement existing package systems like RPM and Debian packages, and help further their evolution. In particular for example, RPM-OSTree (linked below) has as a goal a hybrid tree/package model, where you replicate a base tree via OSTree, and then add packages on top.

A new, transactionally updated Ubuntu for the cloud. Ubuntu Core is a new rendition of Ubuntu for the cloud with transactional updates. Ubuntu Core is a minimal server image with the same libraries as today’s Ubuntu, but applications are provided through a simpler mechanism. The snappy approach is faster, more reliable, and lets us provide stronger security guarantees for apps and users — that’s why we call them “snappy” applications.

Snappy apps and Ubuntu Core itself can be upgraded atomically and rolled back if needed — a bulletproof approach to systems management that is perfect for container deployments. It’s called “transactional” or “image-based” systems management, and we’re delighted to make it available on every Ubuntu certified cloud.

a simple, lightweight HTTP server for storing and distributing custom Debian packages around your organisation. It is designed to make it as easy as possible to use Debian packages for code deployments and to ease other system administration tasks.

Basically, this is a third-party open source reimplementation of Amazon's (excellent) internal packaging system, using symlinks to versioned package directories to ensure atomicity and the ability to roll back. This is definitely the *right* way to build packages -- I know what tool I'll be pushing for, next time this question comes up.

The Law Society will attend a meeting of the Oireachtas Health Committee today to outline its strong opposition to the Government proposals to introduce legislation that will require tobacco products to use plain packaging. The society’s director general Ken Murphy will be its principal representative at the meeting today to discuss its submission on the legislation, and to discuss its concerns that a plain packaging regime will undermine registered trade mark, and design, systems and will amount to an “expropriation of brand owners intellectual property rights’.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Mr Murphy told The Irish Times the views contained in it represent those of the Law Society as a whole, and its 10,000 members, and have been endorsed by the society as a whole, rather than the committee.

Mr Murphy also said the purpose of the Law Society submission was not to protect the tobacco industry, rather the wider effect and impact such a law would have on intellectual property rights, trade marks, in other areas.
“There is a real concern also that plain packaging in the tobacco industry is just the beginning of a trend that will severely undermine intellectual property owners’ rights in other sectors such as alcohol, soft drinks and fast foods.”

Judging by some reactions on Twitter, "endorsed by the society as a whole" may be over-egging it a little.

'an application packaging format, a server configuration library, a cloud server management tool, a persistence management tool, and a tool to manage the application with respect to all these services over time.' interesting, possibly too Pythonic

Linux distros ship ancient Python interpreters, hence it's impossible to rely on recent language features because they won't be there, making it useless to write code in Python. We have similar problems in perl-land, but it's easy enough to get by without the latest-and-greatest; maybe Python is different in that regard? ... or is it Zed?